Traditional Thanksgiving: Because Family Recipes Need Not Impress

Conveniently enough, Thanksgiving happens around the time of year when the thermometer drops, the sun sets early, and all I want to do after work is ogle Food Network on my television. This year, it seems, they've gone especially heavy on holiday recipes, with their whole cadre of antic chefs hawking what they perennially call "family favorites," made from ingredients they say conjure up their various childhoods.

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I'll assume that's a lie, mostly because every recipe they've shown this week seems too twee to have come from a family kitchen. These are dishes made expressly for the Food Network audience, which includes lots of people who want to show up wherever tomorrow and say, "hey, look at this awesome recipe that Rachael Ray taught me." (Does it still count if it's on TV?) First, there's Paula Deen's Deep-Fried Cranberry Sauce Fritters, which deserve little explanation — especially if Gramps has health issues. Or there's Sunny Anderson's version of jalepeno poppers, which I've definitely never seen on a Thanksgiving menu before. That's a good thing, as these are not men's recipes — who wants smoked Gouda hanging on their chin? — unless you consider Alton's Brown's recipe for spatchcock hen, cooked primarily by cutting the bird in half and melting the flesh on a panini maker. For maximum effect, I'd prefer he use a skillet. But whatever works.

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If I'm thankful for one thing tomorrow, it will be a meal that sticks to the basics. Thanksgiving, after all, is the most classic holiday — a day so American that there's an American grocery store in Paris named after it. As you expect, it sells Twinkies, Stove Top Stuffing, and other things that expats crave. But as long as you're stateside, I suggest making the recipes that American folk traditions have dictated for decades: sticky potatoes crushed on the stove, a turkey (with stuffing or dressing) that's left alone in the oven, and some vegetables that are made sinister with butter, marshmallows, or assorted slivers of almond. It doesn't matter that the pilgrims ate venison, or that traditional thanksgiving as we know it was corporate-created. All that matters is that you carry that tradition forward.

And you can start with this recipe for scalloped potatoes (of if you wanna get French about it, gratin dauphinois). Cut up some potatoes, add some garlic, milk, cream, with salt and pepper to taste. Then you're done, which means — for better or worse — more time with the loved ones. Good luck.